


Hush Sweet Prince

by LookingForOctober



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-10
Updated: 2012-06-10
Packaged: 2018-01-06 17:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForOctober/pseuds/LookingForOctober
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I was lonely," Drusilla said sadly.  "Don't you like him?  He's our family."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hush Sweet Prince

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally published on ff.net as part of a collection of short reaction stories to the episode Fool for Love (the collection is incomplete, but can be found [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7962202/1/Like-a-Spike-Through-the-Heart)). This is one of my favorites, and since it's complete in itself, I'm pulling it out to stand on its own.

New York, 1976

"Pack your bags, I've got a Slayer on my tail," Spike called as he flung open the door of the hotel room. The room was dark, except for a light in the bathroom. "Dru?"

From somewhere in the darkness, Drusilla laughed knowingly. "Have you come to play with us, Spike? We're playing violation in the nunnery, and I'm winning. I only cried once. He cried the whole time, which wasn't very sporting of him."

"Some other time, love," Spike said, feeling around for the light switch. "No time for playing right now—" The light illuminated Drusilla, fully dressed on the king sized bed, on top of a naked young man with soft blond hair and classically handsome features. Dru had captured his gaze; he stared at her and tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. "You've got a new toy," Spike said appreciatively. "Where you'd get him?"

"He's not a toy," Drusilla said. "He's a disappointment. I wanted to help him, but he won't let me."

"...all my sins remembered..." the young man muttered fretfully.

Dru put her hand over his mouth. 

"Sounds like just your type," Spike said. 

Her nails drew blood from his cheeks. "He had a fire in him, glowing and glistening, but the flames are dying and I can't make them grow."

"A shame, pet, but you know we've always been better at death," Spike said. "I'll get rid of him while you pack." He looked around, and his gaze fell on the curtained window. "Come on, you," he said, grabbing the man by the ankle and pulling. 

As soon as his head moved and the connection with Dru broke, the man exploded into action, catching Spike by surprise. The blow sent him reeling back; he crashed into the TV. It only took him a second to recover from the surprise, but by then there was a sword pointing at his neck.

"Spike!" Drusilla said, throwing herself between the two men. "Hamlet! Be nice to your brother."

"What?" Spike narrowed his eyes, and then pushed Dru aside, the sword aside - not even sharp - and thrust his face and his vampire's snarl right up against the young man's face. The young man bared his fangs, his forehead bumpy and his eyes yellow, the vampire in him rising up in response to the challenge.

"Go away for a week and you never know what you're going to come back to," Spike muttered. "You're not my brother," he told the young man fiercely, pushing him back onto the bed, snatching the prop sword from his hand and breaking it over his knee. "You're pathetic."

He turned to Dru, fury in every line of his body.

"What is this?"

"I was lonely," Drusilla said sadly. "Don't you like him? He's our family."

"I wasn't enough for you?" A hundred years worth of devastation in those words.

"I wanted something blue," Drusilla said simply.

"I can wear blue," Spike snarled. Hamlet wriggled across the bed, his eyes on the door. Dru turned but Spike was there before her. He punched Hamlet; Hamlet's head jerked back and he fell sprawling across the bed. "You stay out of this."

"His heart is blue," Drusilla said reproachfully.

"I don't care," Spike said. He punched the intruder again, knocking him off the bed, then kicked him in the gut and grabbed the bed. Muscles straining -- it was a king sized bed -- Spike lifted the bed and then before the mattress could fall off he flipped it and brought it down upside down on top of the intruder. Only one naked leg protruded. It kicked feebly and then was still.

Drusilla clapped. "Just like a real family again," she said.

Spike growled.

 

"Stepchild," Spike said. He was carrying Hamlet -- now dressed all in black -- over his shoulder through the streets; Drusilla carried the luggage. 

"You can't choose your family, Spike," Drusilla said. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that? He's your little baby brother, because I'm your mummy and I chose him."

"I said he can be family," Spike grumbled. "But he's not my brother. He's not equal with me, and he never will be. Stepchild."

"He killed his last step-father," Drusilla said. "I saw it happen."

"I'd just like to see him kill me," Spike said derisively. "This lump." He poked Hamlet in the side, but the other vampire was completely out. He didn't even twitch.

"He killed his uncle and his mother and all his friends too," Drusilla said dreamily. "And the girl who loved him."

"Turn here," Spike said, guiding Drusilla through the crowded intersection. He bared his teeth and growled at a man who tried to step into their personal space, and laughed at the expression on the man's face. "Anyone can kill," he told Dru. "Not everyone has the killer instinct. Does he love it? Does he seek it out? Does he bathe in the blood of his enemies? Because that's what you deserve. Someone who can--"

"See how he shimmers?" Drusilla said dreamily. “He's really very gentle. Like a poisonous flower. So sweet and innocent, and then everyone is dead, and he's mine."

Spike stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk and threw Hamlet onto the ground. The New York crowd walked around the fallen vampire, their steps quick and their gazes averted. "He's a poet, isn't he?" Spike said. "A pansy poet who was looking for someone to love. Is that it? It's not enough to be the center of my world, you need someone else. Is that it?"

"I wanted someone all my own," Drusilla said. "Someone who would never leave me cold and alone with only the stars for company. Someone who didn't care more about killing than about me."

"But you love killing," Spike said, deeply hurt and then furiously angry. "Someone you can control? Am I too much for you? All I want to do is take care of you, and give you everything you want, everything you deserve."

"The stars told me that someday you will leave me, and I believed them. But Hamlet will always be mad for his mummy, for as long as he'd dead but not dust." She bent and kissed Hamlet on the forehead, then giggled like the young girl she resembled. With vampire strength she gripped Hamlet by the arms and slung him over her shoulder. She walked briskly away, leaving the luggage behind.

Spike picked up the luggage and rushed after Drusilla. "Bollocks. The stars are wrong, you know I'd never leave you," he said. "I'm as mad as any crazy poet boy, and all for you, my dainty wicked rose."

"I have to look out for myself, Spike, when you're gone. I don't want to be alone."

"You can't have him," Spike said desperately. "I won't let you. You'll never know a moments rest until he's dust."

"Then I'll have him," Drusilla said, pointing at a street musician. "Or him." A man in a suit with a purple tie glittering with rhinestones.

"Not him," Spike said, revulsed. He pointed at a man sitting on the side of the street with a sign that read 'Will Cuss Out Your Mother-in-Law For A Quarter.' "How about him?"

"He doesn't glow," Dru said.

"You're serious, aren't you?" Spike said angrily. He stopped; Dru kept going, and he watched her with narrowed eyes. Without any warning, he threw Dru's suitcase at her head. Dru staggered and Hamlet flopped out of her grip.

"Ow," Hamlet moaned.

"Spike!" Drusilla scolded.

"I'm serious too," Spike shouted, dropping the other suitcase and breaking into a run. He snatched up Hamlet as he passed, leaving Drusilla lie. "Deadly serious," he called over his shoulder. "Say goodbye to poor Hamlet."

He could hear Drusilla's footsteps behind him, weaving in between the footsteps and heartbeats of the living, but he didn't look back. Then a knot of people carrying a water-bed got in his way, and before he could figure out whether to go over, under, or around, he felt a tugging from behind. Drusilla had hold of Hamlet's feet.

Spike grabbed Hamlet's arms before Dru could pull him away entirely, and they both pulled.

"Shiiiiiiiit, that hurts," Hamlet whined.

"You stay out of this," Spike said automatically, reinforcing it with an elbow to the blabbing mouth. "This is between me and Dru."

"Naughty, naughty, Spike," Drusilla said. "Hurting your little brother. Almost as wicked as your mummy."

Hamlet's right shoulder popped out of its socket, and he screamed.

"You stay out--" Hamlet squirmed desperately, and Spike lost his hold on Hamlet's arms. Hamlet screamed again as his right arm impacted the ground just before his head.

"Shut up," Spike growled, kicking Hamlet. "She's mine, you stay out of it. She's always been mine. I've always been hers." He wasn't prepared for Dru's tackle.

"Get a room," a passerby complained a few minutes later. Confronted with two vampiric snarls, he retreated precipitously.

"Step-son it is, then," Spike said after another few minutes. "But I'm telling you now, I won't have any step-son of mine screaming whenever he gets hurt. He's got a lot to learn."

They got up and rearranged their clothes. Dru helped a reeling Hamlet to his feet.

"To take arms against a sea of troubles..." Hamlet muttered.

 

"How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses--"

Spike punched him.

"O that this too too solid flesh--"

Spike kicked him.

"I'll speak to it though Hell itself should gape and bid me hold my--"

Spike hooked his leg around Hamlet's leg and brought him crashing to the ground.

"This might be hard for you," he said, standing over the prone vampire. "But the time for words is when you're winning and want to gloat, not when--"

Hamlet kicked out. Spike took it with barely a pause. "Not when you're one mistake away from being beaten into a bloody pulp. Now get up."

Hamlet levered himself to his knees. "I'll make a warrior of you yet!" Spike said. "Up!"

"To hell with you," Hamlet snarled, and leapt at Spike, fists swinging.

"That's more like it," Spike said, and slammed Hamlet into the wall with one well placed punch. Knockout. 

Drusilla came up beside him and the two of them linked arms and looked down at her vulnerable offspring. Spike mused, "I wonder if Angelus felt like this when he looked at me."

 

Only a single candle lit their daytime hiding place, a dead end subway tunnel lined with sleeping bags -- forty or fifty of them -- and the scattered possessions of the squatters who'd been here before. All either fled or dead, leaving the three vampires in possession.

Hamlet rested with his head on Drusilla's lap. Drusilla sang to him.

"Hush sweet prince and close your eyes  
Do not breath, go to sleep."

Hamlet murmured something about demons singing him to his rest.

"Silent heart and silent mouth  
Not a peep, go to sleep."

In the pause between verses, Spike sat down next to Drusilla and put his around around her.

"In your dreams fair maidens drown  
Poison kills the weak who weep."

Drusilla rested her head on Spike's shoulder, her voice fading as she reached the end of her song.

"Hush sweet prince, the wall of sleep  
Fall on you, all fall down."

"Who is he really?" Spike asked quietly. 

"I am Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," Hamlet said, his voice blurry. Drusilla nodded and hummed another soft musical phrase. Hamlet's eyes closed. 

"I know your games. Whatever nonsense you've put in his mind, he's not the bloody Prince of Denmark," Spike said in Drusilla's ear. "So where'd you find him?"

"His life passed before my eyes," Drusilla said. "And then he died and I saved him."

Spike laughed. "You went to a play?" he interpreted.

"He was a hero," Drusilla said. "And so misunderstood."

"He was a bloody actor," Spike said. "Ambitious with a streak of stubborn in him. I can see it, under the wishy-washy. I like him."

"I see his potential," Drusilla said. "That's why I want him. He'll be exactly what I want."

"You're really doing a number on him," Spike agreed. He laughed. "Better him than me. Hamlet!"

Hamlet murmured sleepily, something about whips; Dru hummed a line of melody and he subsided.

"You're changing him too," Drusilla said to Spike. "But I don't mind. He's your baby brother too, we're family." She smiled, showing her teeth. "Family devours."

"That's right, Dru, I'll be his Gandalf," Spike said. "Between you and me, he'll never know who he really is."

 

"Awake, awake!" Hamlet shouted, standing in the middle of the tunnel with his chest thrust out like a trumpeter. "The night approaches, and the hunt comes."

Spike tumbled into motion, but there was no one there -- no one to attack but Hamlet. "Shut up," Spike growled, cuffing him across the face. "What's wrong with you?"

"I dream of demons and wake to nothing else," Hamlet said. 

Dru sat up and smiled proudly. "The angels are weeping and gnashing their teeth," she said. "And I am the mother of princes."

"Frailty, thy name is--"

Spike cuffed him again. "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," he snapped. "Show some respect to your mother." 

Drusilla giggled. Spike looked surprised, then looked down at himself -- all rebel all the time, his style proclaimed -- and when he looked back at Dru he was grinning a very young and almost abashed grin. Drusilla held out her hand and he pulled her up into his arms. "What are you making me?" he murmured into her ear. "Step-father?"

"I'll have it not," Hamlet said. They both ignored him.

"Wear it like a helmet, and let it speak," Drusilla said.

Spike laughed. "No, someone has to be comprehensible around here," he said. "And it's not you, pet, now is it?"

"Honeying and making love over the nasty sty--" Hamlet said loudly. "I'll have it not in my sight."

"Shut up," Spike said, but he was distracted. 

"Mmmm," Drusilla said. "My valiant little boy..." Suddenly, she pulled away from Spike, her face showing alarm. "Spike, we have to go. She's coming."

"Who's coming?"

"Your Slayer, she's coming."

"And you don't think we three can take her?" Spike said.

Drusilla froze. "But she's your Slayer," she said sadly. "The Slayers are always yours, they're the only thing that touches you. And you touch them."

"Let's try this family thing instead," Spike said. "I've got to see how my step-son stacks up."

Drusilla's smile was fierce like a storm. "Spike, oh Spike, it'll be just like the old days."

 

"If it isn't the Chosen One," Spike said. He stood, apparently alone, in the middle of a sea of sleeping bags. "Hello, love. Come to dance?"

Nikki Wood gave the squat a comprehensive once-over with a few piercing glances. She shifted her grip on her stake and stepped forward. Her step was light and her jaw was tight.

"Not much for conversation, are you?" Spike said. 

"Just get this over with, vampire," Nikki said.

"Right, you're a 'You vampire, me Slayer' type," Spike said. "I hope your fighting's better than your conversation, or this is going to be boring."

Nikki didn't waste her breath answering; she dived into a somersault that took her across the sleeping bags and come up within Spike's guard. Her stake arced through the air, and would have found a home in Spike's chest but Drusilla grabbed Nikki from behind, white fingers digging in to bushy black hair. The stake barely grazed Spike's bare arm.

"Not boring," Spike admitted. 

Nikki tore free of Drusilla at the cost of a hunk of hair with some scalp mixed in. The scent of blood energized all three vampires, even Hamlet, hidden behind an incongruous coat-rack. Spike could smell his excitement. "First blood to the vampires," Spike said. "Come on Slayer, you can do better than that."

Nikki backed up a step. Spike and Dru advanced in tandem, and they barely had to glance at each other to time their attacks. Nikki ducked and twisted and emerged unscathed, sliding across a sleeping bag like it was home plate and coming to rest right next to Hamlet.

Hamlet quivered in his hiding place, but he didn't attack. A second passed, everyone frozen in place, then Dru shrieked wordlessly at Hamlet, infuriated by his hesitation. Hamlet didn't even look in her direction. 

Nikki pulled out a crossbow and aimed it at Dru in one fluid motion. Spike moved. Hamlet did nothing. The crossbow went off.

The crossbow bolt quivered to rest in Spike's left arm, in a direct line for Drusilla's heart if Spike hadn't blocked it. Drusilla pushed past Spike, intent on Hamlet, as Spike pulled the bolt out of his arm and advanced on the Slayer.

No smug taunts now, he had had his teeth and he had a pointy stake that could hurt humans as easily as vampires, and that was all he needed. They traded blows, evenly matched, each of them keeping the other fully occupied. Spike almost forgot about Drusilla and Hamlet, falling into the rhythm of the fight, giving and receiving pain. It was good.

"Look at that," Nikki said suddenly. "Evil kills itself." She sounded so genuinely pleased she actually managed to distract Spike. He glanced toward the other side of the room for a second -- Hamlet was screaming something about Hyperion and a satyr in Dru's face, and Dru had a stake in her hand. 

"Serves him right," Spike said, and blocked Nikki's kick with time to spare, but had to whip away when his weak arm almost let through the follow up punch. The wound from the crossbow bolt was starting to throb.

The next time he glanced back at the other side of the room, Dru had subdued Hamlet with her stern gaze, and she was giving him her stake--

"No!" Spike shouted. "Don't do it--"

Hamlet held the stake like it was a banana, no threat to anyone. 

"She's the one you want to kill," Drusilla crooned. "Kill her and drink her blood. It's better than anything you've ever dreamed of..."

Hamlet stumbled forward, Nikki punched Spike so hard he went flying across the room and then she turned to face the younger vampire. She was all confidence, he was all hesitation.

Drusilla came to stand next to Spike. "See how he shimmers?"

Spike laughed shakily, getting up and brushing himself off. "No, that's all you, pet," he said. "Young Hamlet is just about to find out what it feels like to turn into dust."

"No, he's going to--"

Hamlet ran.

Drusilla shrieked and took off after him, graceful in motion and quickly gone, leaving Spike with a weak arm and a spinning head and a Slayer on the loose. The Slayer laughed. "Someone's going to die today, and it's not going to be me," she said.

"Wrong," Spike said, and then that was the last thing he said for a while. The Slayer put him on the defensive, and kept him there. This wasn't a dance, it was the prelude to a slaughter, and Spike was fighting just to stay alive.

It ended when the Slayer got a good kick in. As Spike stumbled back, she leapt, knocking him over and landing on top of him, breaking a few ribs with her thick boots.

Spike looked, and he saw death in her face. 

She raised her stake...

It never came down. Drusilla plucked the stake from the Slayer's hand. Nikki rolled away quickly, and scrambled to her feet, her gaze seeking out another stake. Coat-rack? Wooden crate? Dru danced after her, light on her toes. Spike groaned.

The two women, Slayer and vampire, came together in a blur of motion that was almost impossible to follow, and when they parted Nikki was cradling a broken arm and Drusilla was limping, her dress in shreds and her leg not much better off.

All three of them looked at each other, not one of them in a position to attack.

"If I see you again, you die," Nikki said, moving toward the tunnel out with the deliberate care of the injured.

"Or you do," Spike said. He coughed. "I'll track you down, Slayer. We have a dance to finish."

 

"I always look after you," Drusilla said, wrapping a bandage around Spike's rib cage.

"Except when you don't," Spike said, even toned and philosophical. "What'd you do to Hamlet?"

"I lost him," Dru said mournfully. "I'll have to find another one."

"Not if you want to keep looking after me," Spike said. "No more children."


End file.
